PDP chair: Pressure on Tukur as Presidency prepares Option B

PDP Chairmanship candidates

Intrigues, horse-trading and coercion were being brought into play, yesterday, as contending forces in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, sought to get the edge over one another ahead of the election of a new national executive of the party, Saturday.
The object of the increasing schemes, it emerged, is the front-runner for the national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who normally reliable sources in the party said had been endorsed by the Presidency for the top party post.


Meanwhile, there were reports yesterday that the Presidency was forging ahead with its pro-Tukur campaign with the lure of board appointments being offered to major antagonists of the Tukur agenda.
It also emerged that the party has proposed to screen the 11 chairmanship aspirants on Friday, within 24 hours of the election. It was being feared that the short time between the screening and the election was aimed at giving little room for those against the establishment for an appeal.
A deluge of petitions, Vanguard learnt, have flooded the national secretariat of the party and the Presidency against Tukur. Central to the petitions is the allegation that Tukur has not returned to the party after his reported expulsion in 2001. It also emerged that at least one of those who endorsed his nomination form is the national chairman of a rival political party.
Lack of interest in party affairs
Tukur, in a push to fend off allegations of non-interest in party affairs, especially at sub-national levels, was yesterday rushing to Bauchi for today’s zonal congress of the party. The frontline national chairmanship aspirant was absent at the ward, local government and state congresses of the party in his native Adamawa State, prompting allegations of a lack of interest in party affairs at the grassroots.

The proposed adoption of a consensus list of candidate on the convention floor, Vanguard learnt, is heating up the party with stakeholders from across the country expressing reservations against the plan. The agitation is especially hot in the South-East, South-West and in the North-East.
The exception to the discord, Vanguard learnt, is the North-West where an associate of Vice President Namadi Sambo was yesterday said to be almost a shoo-in for the influential position of national organising secretary.
National Vice Chairman of the party in the North-East, Senator Paul Wapama, was locked in endless meetings yesterday apparently aimed at patching up the thinly veiled discord among major party stakeholders.
Despite the reported adoption of the President’s list by the PDP governors, the Presidency, it was learnt, was not resting on its oars and had prepared a Plan B to be implemented in the event of a last minute collapse of the reported agreement.
Central to the alternative option, it was learnt, is a plan to directly woo influential stakeholders with the offer of board appointments. The boards of Federal Government parastatals and agencies are yet to be reconstituted after the dissolution some few months ago.

VANGUARD NEWSPAPER